1878.] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
265 
is filled with water; and upon it is placed the plate 
containing the butter, which is covered by the up¬ 
per part, also containing water; which gradually 
soaks through the porous substance, and evaporates 
from the surface, producing a temperature beneath 
the cover as low as 38 or 40 degrees, when the 
evaporation is active. When placed in an airy po¬ 
sition, evaporation is greater, and the temperature 
proportionately lowered. Figure 2 shows the cool¬ 
er complete. At fig. 
8 is a cooler that can 
be made in a moment; 
a large plate is used 
for the stand. The 
plate is filled with 
water, in which a 
piece of brick, or fiat 
tile, is placed. On 
this is set the plate of 
butter. A flower-pot; ^-section of cooler. 
having a wooden plug to serve as a handle, is in¬ 
verted over the butter, with its lower edge in the 
water. The porous pot absorbs the water, or it 
may be well moistened occasionally, and as it dries, 
it will cool the butter very rapidly. It should be 
placed in a draft of air, as in a cellar window. 
--' 
Household Notes and Queries. 
The readiness of the many members of the 
“American Agriculturist Family ” to help one an¬ 
other, has been shown on many occasions, but 
never more strikingly than in the replies to “Reci¬ 
pes Wanted,” in May last. One housekeeper 
wished a recipe for the “ Queen of Puddings.” We 
made her want known, and forthwith forty— save 
one,—39 of her sisters came forward to her help. 
The answers came from Maine to Florida and Texas 
in one direction, and from Vermont to Kansas and 
Colorado in the other, as well as from almost every 
intervening State. We had recipes in brief and in 
extenso ; in the shortest possible prose, and the long¬ 
est possible verse —both recipe and letter. If there is 
any one pudding that we ought to know about, it is 
The Queen of Puddings, and here is the recipe : 
One pint of bread-crumbs, one quart milk, one cup 
sugar, butter size of an 
egg. Yolks of four eggs. 
Flavor with lemon, and 
bake as custard. Beat 
the whites of four eggs 
to a froth, mix with a 
cup of powdered sugar, 
and juice of a lemon. 
Spread a layer of fruit 
jelly over the custard 
while hot; cover with 
the frosting, and bake 
until slightly brown. To be eaten cold, with cold 
cream, or warm, with any 6auce that may be pre¬ 
ferred.So far as the composition goes, the 
many recipes were surprisingly alike, but the com¬ 
ments attached were very amusing, such as “ The 
best pudding ever invented;” “The richest pud¬ 
ding known to cookery.”—But the funniest part of 
the whole matter is that the recipe started from 
this office several years ago,—so long ago that we 
had quite forgotten it, and now it comes back to us 
from nearly 40 housekeepers in the precise form 
in which it first appeared in our columns.... In the 
same with the above paper we asked our friends fora 
Recipe for “Scrapple,” and this has been re¬ 
sponded to by over 20 
of our readers, but as 
that can be useful only 
in cold weather, when 
pigs are made into 
pork, we hold on to 
these until a more 
timely season... .The 
promptness and the 
number of responses 
to these requests are 
Fig. 2. cooler, covered. 
Fig. 3.— flower-pot 
COOLER. 
very gratifying, as they show that housekeepers all 
over the country are ready to come to the help 
of any one of their sisterhood. We at the same 
time asked for recipes for the best manner of using 
Rte Flour, also for Salt Raising for Bread. 
We have received several of each of these, which 
will be given in due time. In the same month, May 
last, we had an article on “ Women’s and Children’s 
Shoes,” in which we gave a recipe for 
Sponge-Blacking, such as is, or used to be, sold 
by all the druggists. A correspondent in Saco, Me., 
writes that he has made the same blacking for 
many years in his family, and finds that “ the addi¬ 
tion of one ounce of camphor to each pint of the 
blacking preserves it from drying hard, and crack¬ 
ing, as it will do without it.” He also suggests 
that it is much less trouble to purchase the shellac- 
varnish readj'-made at a paint-shop, and add the 
other ingredients. No doubt. But our recipes are 
intended for those who must start from first prin¬ 
ciples, many of whom are beyond the reach of those 
things which may be readily had in towns and cities. 
A Portable Folding Wood-Box.— From L. D. 
Snook.—In many localities, even in mid-summer, 
there are cool spells,in which alittle fire in the even¬ 
ing is necessary, not only for comfort, but for health. 
Those who, with the approach of warm weather, 
put away all the fire¬ 
making appliances, may 
find a folding wood- 
box, one which may be 
used when needed, and 
set aside when not 
wanted, a useful house¬ 
hold contrivance. The 
box referred to is shown 
in the engraving, and 
may be of a size suited 
to the wood used, and 
the quantity it is re¬ 
quired to hold. It consists of a frame made of slabs 
of pine, or other convenient wood, an inch and a 
quarter thick, hinged together with a wooden pin, or 
by carriage bolts. The sides and ends are made of 
any heavy canvas or bagging,tacked to the frame, as 
shown in the engraving. If desired, the wood-box 
may 7 be ornamented by 7 the use of brass, or other 
bright-headed tacks, and the working of a mono¬ 
gram or initial letter on the sides and ends with 
some bright colored worsted. Such a wood-box will 
keep “dirt” from the floor, and when the time for 
which it is required has passed, it can be so folded 
as to occupy but a small space until a change in 
the weather to cooler may call it into use again. 
FOLDING WOOD-BOX. 
38 ©YS <k WMISc 
Tlae Doctor’s Correspondence. 
In trying to describe the Telephone I did not expect 
to make the younger boys and girls understand it, but I 
hoped by first stating some facts about sound, elec¬ 
tricity, and magnetism (which is only a form of elec¬ 
tricity), to give the older youngsters, and perhaps some 
who are not young, a general idea of it. _ 
Last month I told you about induction, ( £ 
and thata current of electricity in passing 
around a piece of soft iron would induce 
magnetism and make the bar of iron a 
magnet for the time, _ 
but as soon as the cur- C ^ J 
rent stopped the soft ^ 
iron ceased to oe a c 
magnet. It was al30 
stated that a bar of steel 
could be made a mag¬ 
net, and hold its mag¬ 
netic power, forming a 
permanent magnet, and 
that a permanent mag¬ 
net if passed into a coil 
of wire would induce a 
current of electricity 
in that wire. These 
points were described 
more in full last month; 
the object being to 
show you that electrici¬ 
ty could make (or in¬ 
duce) a magnet, and 
on the other hand a magnet could make (or induce) 
a current of electricity. I must ask you at this time 
to attend to one more point, which will bring us 
Near to tlie Telephone. 
In figure 1 we have a bar of steel, a, which is a per- 
Fig. 1. 
Fig. 2. 
manent magnet, and around it is a coil of wire, the wire 
being covered with silk or cotton to keep it from actual¬ 
ly touching the steel; the ends of the coil, b, are in 
contact. If we now bring a piece of sheet-iron, c, near 
to one end of the magnet, its magnetism is disturbed, 
and at the same time a current of electricity will be 
started in the wire; on taking the sheet-iron away, 
the magnet returns to its former condition, and at the 
Fig. 3.— the telephone complete. 
same time there will be a movement of electricity in the 
wire. The piece of sheet-iron indudes a change in the 
magnet, and every change in the magnet induces a cur¬ 
rent of electricity in the wire. This may be repeated as 
often and as rapidly as we choose, and thus keep up a 
constant disturbance in the wire. Now one step further. 
In figure 2 we have the upper magnet and wire quite the 
same as in figure 1. but below at d we have another just 
such bar magnet, wound with wire in precisely the same 
manner, and the ends of the two wires, b , b , are joined 
together. By bringing the shoe’; of iron, c, near to the 
upper magnet, that as before stated will so affect it as to 
start a current of electricity in the wire. This current 
will pass through the coil around d. and as might be ex¬ 
pected will disturb its magnetism, as would be shown by 
its action on another piece of sheet-iron, e , placed near 
it. As c is moveckup and down near the end of the 
upper magnet, the lower magnet would agitate e in the 
same manner. No matter if the wires between the two 
were several feet, or several miles long, the disturbance 
caused in the magnet, a, would be instantly repeated in 
the magnet, d. This is, in brief, 
The Principle of the Telephone; 
let us see how it is applied in use. Figure 3 gives the 
appearance of the instrument. All that is seen is an 
affair of some hard-wood, with binding screws for at¬ 
taching wires at one end; the other end is enlarged and 
hollowed out to form a mouth-piece; on looking into 
this mouth-piece you can only see a thin iron plate. In 
using the Telephone, one talks distinctly at the mouth¬ 
piece, while another, who has a similar instrument, at 
the other end of the wire—which may be five, ten, or 
fifty miles long—holds the mouth-piece to his ear, and 
hears distinctly the words that are spoken. You will re¬ 
collect that I told you of speaking with a lady who was 
three miles or more away; just such an instrument as 
here shown was used. The real size of the Telephone is 
not quite six inches in length, and about three inches 
across the large end. But you will wish to know what 
is inside of the instrument. 
Tlie Machinery of the Telephone, 
this is given in figure 4, which shows figure 3 divided 
lengthwise. Beginning at the upper or wide end we 
have the mouth piece, and directly below this is a thin 
iron plate, the section of which is shown by the white 
line, K As the plate used for taking tlie portraits called 
“ferrotypes,” or “tin-types,” was found to be of the 
right thickness—or more properly, thinness, this is used, 
though any other very thin iron would answer as well. 
In the center is a small steel rod, A, which is a perma¬ 
nent magnet, and this can be moved up and down to fix 
it in just the right position, by the screw seen at the 
lower end. We now notice the most important part, 
shown at B , which is a sort of spool, around which are 
wound many yards of fine copper wire, which is covered 
with silk; the two ends of which, C, C, pass down 
through what we may call the handle of the instrument, 
to the binding screws, Z>, D. This being the arrange¬ 
ment of the parts—how do they rvork? Let us go back 
to our figure 1, and we find we have the same parts that 
were described there; we have a steel magnet, and a coil 
of wire, but in the Telephone the coil is of much finer 
wire, and wound round and round a great man} 7 times to 
get tb<? needed power. Then in place of the sheet-iron, 
